Baldur's Gate Prequel: Moonlight Murder
by TurnipSlayer
Summary: This began as an exercise to practice the various aspect of written English. It is a prequel of the original BG game, and it begins with the murder shown in the intro, follows its investigation (or lack of) and ends just before the events shown in the game itself. It is, of course, a product of my own imagination and other versions would have been possible.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: This is a version of the well-known Baldur's Gate intro. It is, of course, my own personal vision and many others would have been possible. It explains what happened before the intro: who was that man, why was he running up, etc. I've only changed one thing, in my story he doesn't wear a helmet.

Sidon of Darromar sat comfortably on the couch, sipped the thayan wine and leaned back, effortlessly posing as a man who had grown too fond of his reflection. He was fully armored except for a helmet, and his rough appearance stood out from the rest of the stylish room and its occupants. He was a warrior -had always been one-, a mercenary leader, and he delighted in showing it off.

The scion of a disgraced and once-mighty family, he'd had to endure as a child the humiliation and injustice of seeing his peers of a former lesser standing sneer at him. They had mocked and insulted him for the sins, treachery and failings of his progenitors as if they had been of his own doing. His wrath had grown quickly for that reason, although in an unfocused and explosive way, directed both to other children, to his family, and to himself. Years later he would find a greater purpose, and all that suffering only made the revelation of his true origins and birthright much sweeter.

By revealing the truth to him, the wandering old priest had liberated him from the shackles of his "father's" blood and the shame it carried. The priest had not promised him empty illusions, phantoms and dreams of a long-lost past like the ones his mother had desperately embraced till his dying breath. No, he had only told him the truth, what he had always sensed as an unavoidable conviction. He had told him greatness was his destiny. He didn't ask for anything in exchange, but he did want proof of his strength. The black priest had demanded a sacrifice, something the fourteen-year-old Sidon had been happy to offer. Ten days after that, the body of the cruelest of his tormentors was found, his head dashed against the rocks of a waterfall. Although nobody knew for certain and nobody could prove anything, after that day Sidon wasn't mocked again.

"Candlekeep, you say?"

That had been asked by one of Rieltar's lieutenants. Diyab or something similar. Sidon didn't actually care. They were all faceless and backstabbing bureaucrats from the Iron Throne, or The Guild, as the merchant organization was called by its more zealous, hubristic, and power-hungry members.

"Yes, the fortress library," Sidon said, "it is isolated, the monks keep to themselves, and it should not be the source of any direct danger, but there lies the problem. By ignoring it now, it may grow into something more dangerous in the future, and then it could become an unassailable stronghold, a headquarter of sorts. The keep should be infiltrated before anyone realizes there is something amiss along The Coast Way."

The three underlings showed a modicum of interest for his advice but didn't answer for a very long time; of course, they kept irradiating disdain and arrogance even in silence.

"How do you propose to do that?" The same man asked. "You are a Tethyrian, you are far away from your kingdom and we are not sure you understand the difficulties involved in the plans you so easily conceive. In any event, we shall assume you want to be in charge of that hypothetical undertaking?"

"If that is what the Guild decides, yes. I'll be honored." Said Sidon. "My warriors and agents have been trained for this kind of operation. They are also more subtle in their methods than other more... unsavory mercenary groups."

His boast was met with amused interest though they knew he was right. Although to be fair, it was not that difficult to be more subtle than The Chill or the Black Talons, one a gang of subhuman monsters, and the other a company of militarized highway robbers.

Sidon wasn't only interested in the secrets Candlekeep hoarded. Alaundo's prophecies were there, true, but there was more to it than just that. They were, indeed, a necessary step to his vital ambition, but if he could also replace the Chill or Black Talons as Rieltar's principal enforcers... well, 'two dragons with one stone' as the halflings say. That influence would give him invaluable access to the Iron Throne's assets, leaders and to its imposing network of informers and agents. With all that at his disposal, he knew he would find his real family soon. But then, what would he do? The information he had discovered until then was, at best, flimsy and confusing, but he already suspected it had to end in bloodshed.

"You know Candlekeep is not a place one can just enter and rob at one's pleasure." Said to him a wiry old man, Winsky Perorate. A powerful gray eminence if the rumors Sidon had heard were true.

"I know." Said the offended mercenary leader, emphasizing that last word. "Let me show you something."

With a haughty waving of his armored hand, Sidon called his secretary, Daan. The young and nervous man had been standing near the entrance, by the open door, holding the precious packet and trying to look as if he had not heard the whole conversation. He gave it to his master and then sat uncomfortably at his side. Sidon unwrapped the package and showed its content -a brittle little book- to Winsky. He read the title.

"Plants, herbs and mushrooms from the mysterious East. From Kara-Tur to Kozakura. A translation of the original oriental book? Huh, Sarevok might like this one." Added the old man, mostly to himself.

For that commentary and for some reason Sidon didn't understand (nor cared), the other person in the room, a striking woman named Cythandria, glanced at Winsky with patent and piercing hostility.

"It should work." Continued Winsky, unaware or uninterested in the woman's reaction. "The sages and scholars of Candlekeep gather such odd books as if their lives depended on it. From where did you get it? You know, I do not want to know." He said, realizing there were a few bloodstains on the cover. "We'd better clean this a bit. Now... you see, we may have a problem."

Winsky drummed on the table with his fingers and whispered something incomprehensible. Sidon felt a piercing pain behind his eyes, like a sudden headache, and he attributed it to the horribly diluted wine and many sleepless nights. His nightmares had become much worse in the last days. He repeatedly blinked, trying to dispel the foggy sensation in his mind.

He didn't exactly know how or why, but Sidon knew something had changed in a, literally, blinking instant. For the first time, Sidon felt the darkness that surrounded him. He saw that only a lone candle lit the room, although he was sure there had been more when he had first entered. Behind him, a new sound had appeared. Rain pattered dolefully and rhythmically against the window panes, the sound only interrupted by the blinding light and thunder of a sudden storm.

Sidon put down the wine glass and, following old instincts, slowly drew his hand to his sword. His mind felt hazy and violent.

Winsky squirmed in his chair. "We are sorry, but we can't approve this Candlekeep operation."

Sidon could not shake the feeling that there was a gap in his mind, that this last sentence was the final point of a much bigger conversation he had missed. Or perhaps forgotten? Had he been drugged? Had Winsky continued speaking while he had been 'dazed'? And if so, for how long? The warrior could not, however, think too much about that since something else caught his altered attention.

His eyes were fixed beyond the three lieutenants, outside the room, at a figure in the corridor. There, on a scarcely illuminated pedestal, stood an enormous suit of black armor; he did not remember having seen it before when he had entered the room. It looked as though it had been crafted for a demon more than for men, and the firmness with which it stood hinted at some living presence inside it. He actually felt it. He felt a baleful and inhuman thing gazing at him from inside the open jaws of its skull-like helmet.

Doubting his own senses, he closed his eyes and pressured his temples. The menacing armor suit was still there when he looked again, although less 'alive' and threatening than before. Sidon forced himself to look at Winsky again and resume the conversation, to return to some sort of reality.

"Why... why I'm not allowed to?" He managed to ask. "It will be a quiet and precautionary operation. Spying, subversion, and disinformation will be the goal, that's..."

Winsky raised his hand. "No, you do not understand. We would quickly accept your proposal if it had come from any other source. In fact, we'll probably put it into operation ourselves, but you will not enter Candlekeep. We are worried about your... ancestor and what you intend to do there. Also, you look very ill, you should really sleep more."

Sidon didn't even hear the last sentence. The realization they knew about his true family, and most likely about his plans too, awakened him from his strange stupor. Furious and desperate like a cornered animal, Sidon rose up from the couch and draw his sword, pointing aimlessly at them.

"You know! What game are you playing?" Sidon screamed.

The three were all unfazed. Only Duyib seemed ready to jump at him.

"There is no game here, we are all friends." Said Winsky while moving his fingers under the table in strange patterns and looking at him between the eyes. Cythandria was also doing similar movements and she mouthed every word the man was saying.

"You are free to go." Continued the old man. "But you are not going to Candlekeep. It's too dangerous for you; imagine what could happen to you if they discover what you are. Leave this problem to us and we will inform you about our discoveries. Go home and don't worry, let your assistant help you. You have worked too much and you deserve resting."

Yes, that made sense. To Sidon, the last two sentences looked like the most sensible thing he had ever heard, and they appeared to him as a command of irresistible logic. True, they had discovered his secret but they didn't seem to care and were, after all, his friends. They were protecting him from potential threats. He had been foolish to even contemplate such a risky project, and he realized all would be better if they did the field work. Satisfied with his own reasoning and cunning, he sheathed his sword.

"Then I think this is settled" Said a changed Sidon, entirely unaware of the confusion inside his own mind. "Daan, let's go."

Without saying anything or commenting the odd situation, the assistant rose up. Then, during a sudden flash of lightning, the mercenary leader saw the face of his assistant. Paler than usual, his eyes looked at him with unusual predatory intensity and directness. His eyes were blue, or should have been because the right one was then yellow, and its pupil writhed playfully and unnaturally.

"What?" Asked Daan with a disarming smile, his eye turning instantaneously back to normal.

Something burst inside Sidon's mind, something he had not felt since his first murder. Still working through the maze of what he then assumed had been drugs and infernal magics, his paranoid mind awakened into a twisted reality. He didn't know how or why but he had accepted a load of rubbish during the whole conversation. Not only that, he had somehow agreed to hand over much of his responsibilities to his weak-willed assistant. Or to some fiend that looked like him. Sidon had done many horrible things to build his own personal empire, and he almost gave all of that to... him?

"What? We should be going..." Said again, a bit nervously this time.

"Sorcery..." Muttered Sidon, his sanity beginning to slip. "After all we have shared... You lying creature! How long have all of you being manipulating me?"

He did not wait for an answer. Howling madly, Sidon drew his sword and rammed it into the chest of his companion. Sidon looked at his dying assistant and waited, but there was no flare of wiggly light nor luminous sign, nothing to point at a curse dispelled; nothing to allay his troubled mind, only human blood pouring from his wound and mouth. His life quickly fading, Daan's eyes looked at him, confused and scared as any mortal eyes. If there had been a demon behind those eyes, it had certainly left by then. Panic-stricken and rambling, Sidon rushed out of the room, shoving everything that stood in his way. Nobody followed him.

The haunted warrior had already left the room when a harrowing scene halted his flight. Looking down at him, the hulking black armor stepped from the pedestal and uttered a resounding burst of laughter. A sudden lightning dispelled the darkness and for an instant Sidon saw a humanoid face inside the helmet's maw. Then, dark once more, its eyes appeared, giving off a deep and unholy golden glow. Sensing his intentions, the thing sidestepped slowly and blocked Sidon's path. He stumbled and fell to the ground, but the creature stood there, just looking at him. He didn't have the time or the lucidity to think about its reasons, so he just fled in the opposite direction, being closely followed by the creature's mocking laughter.

The armored Sidon of Darromar kept running. The clangor of his hurried flight resonated throughout the whole building. Searching for a way down to his men he found the stairs, but he did not find his soldiers but mocking figures wearing his own smiling face. They drew their weapons -though they didn't attack him- and threatened him with them, cursing him with his own voice, saying things only his men knew. The warrior fled from the nightmarish shapes and ran all the way up the stairs. Glancing back for an instant, he saw the armored thing running, getting closer by the moment. He went up -he didn't know for how many floors-, and sprinted almost to the point of collapse. At the top, he found at last a rickety old door and opened it. He was on the roof of the Iron Throne towering building, overlooking the whole city of Baldur's Gate, and without any visible escape.

The rain had already stopped and only lightning, thunder, and the full moon were there to greet him. No other living being was near and the whole city was sleeping or hiding from the thundering storm. The damp air helped him to free his mind a little from the horrors he had felt and seen inside, but his body gave in. Only then he thought about his sword... but he had left it on his friend's chest. Exhausted, he fell to his knees.

A creaky thump sounded behind him. He looked back and the door burst open, shattered into pieces. In came the yellow-eyed demon, bending its figure so it could pass through the opening. The moonlight exposed its features and for the first time Sidon clearly saw there was a man inside the demonic armor. That did not give him solace or hope.

Cowering with fear as he had never felt, the mercenary leader dragged himself backward along the ground.

"No... You can't." Begged Sidon, moving away from him.

"I will be the last..." The armored man said with a booming voice, his glowing eyes standing out in the darkness. "And you will go first."

Then Sidon understood. He had heard that sentence before, or at least something similar. In his feverish dreams the Voice had said the same, 'I will be the last... and they will go first.' He had never known who the voice was, or what it meant, but he had foolishly assumed the 'I' was, somehow, himself. Now he knew that was not true.

He also knew what his pursuer was. He knew he had been played. All the information he had gathered, they knew it already or, worse, he had given it to him. For how long had his "assistant" been feeding him the information? How many of his men, if they were still men, had been working for him?

"There are others... I can show you! Please... Please!" He begged in a last attempt, although there was little he knew that his pursuer did not; and Sidon knew that.

Sidon's back touched a low wall and he pushed himself up against the grating. The man, for then he saw the man inside the iron maw and realized who he was, hit him in the face with his armored fist. When Sidon regained consciousness, his foe gripped him by the throat with one hand and lifted him from the floor. Then, he dashed his hapless body against the fence until it broke. He laughed mockingly, holding him over the city streets below.

The mercenary tried to speak, to beg for his life, but he could do neither. He weakly hit and punched his murderer's arm, but that also proved futile. Of his own weight, his neck began to snap, but finally the armored being broke it with a crushing and quick grip.

With a roaring cry, he threw the mangled body over the smashed railing and waited there long enough to see it crash against the cobbled street. Yes, a perfect sacrifice to prove his strength.

Sidon had been the first, but there were many more to fall.


	2. Chapter 2

Norchapel air was hot and damp, a cruel punishment after the last sleepless and stormy night. Like many others, I fled from shadow to shadow until I market stall with a huge parasol. I hid under it for a short respite, but that didn't help much. Then I realized food was being cooked there. I got a handkerchief from my military vest -a memento of my more professional days- and furiously mopped my face and neck.

"Sir, sir! Soldier, soldier!" Called a high-pitched voice close to me, inside the stand.

Confused, I looked towards the voice direction. It had come from the happy and well-fed female gnome working there. The stall had probably been built with someone higher in mind, and she was also half-concealed by the steam and smoke coming from her many cauldrons and frypans. Unlike everybody else near the place, she didn't seem to be about to melt, which was quite an amazing feat in itself.

I smiled, returned her greetings, but I did not correct her for mistaken me for something I wasn't anymore.

"A fair fee for our friends and the fine folk from the Flaming Fist! Half price for two." She said, waving at me the somethings-on-a-stick she was selling to passersby

.

I chuckled a little at that sales pitch, but I willingly fell for it and bought a pair of skewers.

"Excuse me, but Baledar's house is over there, right?" I asked her, pointing in a random direction.

At first she looked offended as if I had assumed (in fact, I did -and still would-) that because she was a gnome she had to know about every shorty in town. She quickly regained her previous smiling self and, regardless, hid any misgivings she had about me.

"No, no. It's over there." She pointed at a house near the walls of Little Calimshan. "Not that one, but follow that narrow street and then turn left. You w¡ll see a fountain. Well, then follow the calishite wall. It's the sixth house and the biggest one too. It also has a dog's head by the door."

"A dog's head?" I asked.

"Yes. Not real, mind you. It's a painting, like a… silhouette. It's the symbol of his religion, or so I've been told."

"Interesting," I said without lying since I didn't know much about my new potential client. "Is he some priest? What else do you know about him?"

She shrugged. "I don't know, doesn't seem like a typical priest to me and if he has a temple, it must be a little one. He mostly keeps to himself and his people, and rarely leaves the house. There are also many people by his house even late at night; he seems important for the halfling-folk around here. Although many of them, when they are waiting by his house, look sad. And you know, halflings are usually merry."

"Sad? Like… beaten, anxious or mourning?"

She looked at me, puzzled.

"I mean, do they look like they have lost a fight, like they are about to lose one, or like they are mourning for their sons who have in fact died in a fight?"

"Now that you mention it, sir... I'd say it is the last one."

I nodded.

"Is he in trouble?" Asked the gnome.

"Certainly not." I lied. Nobody ever needed me unless he was in trouble. "But we heard he may be able to help us with an investigation. Anyway, you have been very helpful. Here's a tip for your kindness and excellent food."

We said goodbye to each other, but I could sense her suspicious gaze drilling my neck. Or perhaps it was just the sun. In any case, I ignored it and gulped the chicken-looking food. Surprisingly, it was delicious, but it certainly wasn't chicken.

Halflings are not known for being punctual or worrying much about such things. As long as one doesn't rudely interrupt their lunch, you'll be fine. Therefore, I decided to stroll a bit and enjoy the view since, as a city-dweller baldurian, I had lived almost all my life in the city proper. The outskirts were by then still strange and mostly unknown to me, except for a few places I knew well for the raids I had done when I was with the Flaming Fists.

The eastern outskirts spread like a thin and hooked comet's tail, from the Basilisk Gate to the imposing Wyrm's Crossing above the Chiontar River. Longer than Baldur's Gate itself, it was (and still is) a place of taverns, inns, peddlers, merchants and con artists, all living thanks to the constant influx of people who have to pass through there to get to the city. Recent immigrants, those who could not afford the rising house prices, and the occasional reclusive noble also lived there.

There was much one could do along The Tail, and it was a more open -if chaotic- place than The Wide or other markets inside the city. Also, it smelled less like rotten fish. You could spend hours wandering, haggling for useless junk you would never need, and then gawp at the calishite female dancers if that was your thing. Personally, I preferred the Rashemi wrestlers and their traditional only-shoes-and-loincloths fighting spectacles. Besides, they didn't try to distract you while their accomplices stole your wallet.

An hour or so later, I finally went to Baledar's house. As the gnome had said, there were many halflings near it. Most of the little people were wasting time at the benches, smoking, chatting and playing games, but a few were waiting to enter, forming a line near the door. 'Sad' was not the word I would have used to describe them, but it was true there was a certain gravitas about everything they did (even if just waiting).

Of course, once they saw me, everybody looked at me as if I was an escaped zoo animal, and I realized I was the only non-halfling in the vicinity. I stood still, too self-conscious to move. Huh, I would have been more resolute if I'd had to enter the stinking cave of some man-eating troll.

I assumed someone had seen my uneasiness because I was approached by two sturdy halflings. They greeted me and one of them gave me a surprisingly strong and painful handshake.

"You must be Milo." The same one said while I stretched my crushed fingers.

"Yes, and you..."

"Baledar is inside. You can enter, and mind the lintel." He continued, pointing at my head and then at the door. All the halflings whispered among themselves, but nobody followed me.

Bowing down, I entered the house, feeling helpless as if I had just entered the castle of an exotic, distant and all-powerful king. In fact, if someone had wanted to chop off my head, that would have been the ideal moment.


	3. Chapter 3

I timidly entered the house, and what I saw surprised me. I was in the main room, a spacious hall, much cooler than the exterior, and decorated by someone with taste and sufficient funds to enjoy occasional luxuries. You could see it was not a farmer's house; there was even a bookstand with fifty or so books. Religious iconography that I could not recognize, but whose main theme seemed to be nature, dominated the whole room. Only after a while it dawned on me that if the room seemed perfect for me, for someone with half the height it was probably a huge place.

The little table, chairs, various furniture, and even the hearth, were all scaled to the dimensions of a child. The only thing at my size was, oddly enough, a skull. It lay on top of the fireplace, just below a cute little shield with two ominous hammers crossed on top of it.

"Well, well, and who might you be?" I asked to the skull.

"A long distant… companion, you could say." Said a voice behind me.

I turned back. He was a male Halfling, bare-footed as is common with their kind, and wore a long and undistinctive white tunic. I've never known how fast or slow halflings age, but that one already had a few gray locks.

"You must be Baledar." I said, and he nodded.

"A pleasure to meet you, mister Milo. I hope this keepsake has not scared you." He said, moving closer to the skull. "It's an old acquaintance, and I like to keep him near."

"Because he was a friend or an enemy?" I said, too late to close my mouth.

He looked at me intensively, but after an instant he laughed. "He was more of a foe that a friend, I'm afraid. Oh, I'm sorry mister Milo, where are my manners! I should introduce you to my family although you must be tired. Do you need anything, food, a drink, a bath?" He asked, his speech accelerating by the moment.

I tried to say something, but he interrupted me again, telling me about the meal his wife was cooking and how I really, really, had to meet his family. He grabbed me by the wrist and then dragged me to the kitchen while pointing at the numerous souvenirs and curious objects that embellished his home. I answered something from time to time, but I didn't pay much attention to him.

The kitchen was almost as big as the salon, and all the family was there (well, I hoped it was all the family). That meant Baledar's wife, their two daughters, three sons, four cats, and two dogs bigger than the adult halflings. It amazed me to no end that so many people could live together without trying to kill each other from time to time. After they all had pestered me for a while, Baledar began to issue orders and in an instant the kitchen was empty again except for he and his wife. Both gave me a knowing smile that I reciprocated. Whatever test they had thrown at me, I had passed it.

"Come, we'll be much better outside." Baledar then said.

Through a kitchen door he led me to the back garden, and immediately I had the feeling I was in another world. I knew I was still in the outskirts of Baldur's Gate -I could actually see it if I looked over the walls-, and I could not point out anything strange about the place, but I knew there was something incongruous. The halfling realized my confusion and smiled.

"Listen. What do you hear?" He said.

I heard almost nothing, and it took me more time than I'd like to admit to realize that that was exactly the problem. There were people walking, talking or even peddling their wares just a few feets away, but all those sounds were then as distant to me as if they had come from miles away.

"Does it work like that the other way around?" I asked.

"Of course, the effect is even stronger. We could scream at the top of our lungs and someone at the other side of the wall would hardly hear us. This place is a sacred sanctuary, and it should be one even if there is a war around us."

Whatever magic had been used there, it was obviously working. I also suspected that there was more to the place than just a soundproof spell. Even the light from the sun seemed to rest there.

The garden was mostly grass lawn with a few plants here and there. It did not seem like a garden had bee made for a whole family in mind, and Baledar's words about the place being a sanctuary made more sense. If I had wanted to sit down there was only a humble bench made from a log, and for some reason I suspected that sitting or lying on the ground would be a sacrilege. The only other significant objects were a little altar suited for a kneeling halfling, and four polished rocks with some inscriptions. I moved closer to them to read them, but I could only understand what I assumed were names and the ever-present dog symbol.

"They are gravestones." Said Baledar.

Screaming not with my most masculine voice, I jumped aside and apologized while he laughed.

"Don't worry. You didn't know it; besides it is not offensive to us unless you willingly trampled the earth. We do not mark our graves with any visible or grand mount, stele or sarcophagus. And I usually let the grass grow freely above them, although that's a bit of a personal preference. Our bodies return to where they came from, to the earth, and that is all."

Then, adopting a more serious semblance, he pointed at the bench and we sat on it. For a few minutes, we just enjoyed in complete silence the bubble Baledar had built in his garden. I was the one who broke the spell.

"So, what do you need me for, priest?" I asked.

"That skull you saw earlier." He answered very quickly. "Do you know why I still have it?"

"I don't know. You talk to it?" I joked.

"Yes. Well, I used to, now there is not much he can explain to me. But I like to keep him close, and I suspect he'd like that too. Sometimes I speak to him, yes, but he doesn't answer. He hasn't for a very long time."

I assimilated (or tried to) that information and tried to not to show any sign of uneasiness. I knew there were divine and necromantic arts that some people used to speak to the dead; in fact, I knew the Flaming Fist had used them a few times in some investigations, but that was something I would not have associated with a joyous halfling.

"Did you kill him?" I asked him.

"I see you don't have many inhibitions. Is this the usual treatment?"

"Yes. It would be foolish for someone like me to have such luxuries as... inhibitions. I need to know for whom I will be working. Not that it always matters, but there are lines one should not cross."

"I see. Well, yes, I killed him, but there was no foul play involved. In fact, he was the one hunting me, even if he really didn't enjoy it." He stopped there. I waited and didn't press him for more since I sensed he had not explained that story for a long time, if ever.

"I was a slave, in Thay." He continued. "Long story short, I escaped and then joined a band of ex-slaves. We were hungry and desperate but also blinded by hatred. One day we weren't hungry anymore, but that did not calm us, and we fought with even more fury and brutality. Korin, the skull you know, was one of the mercenaries sent to capture or kill us. He was under the command of Sidon of Darromar, a young and brazen tethyrian mercenary leader. This last one probably enjoyed the job much more than his underlings."

That name -Sidon of Darromar- could not be a coincidence. He had died just two days ago; he had fallen, completely drunk, from the roof of the Iron Throne's tower. I had known the man, although I had never spoken to him since outsourcing issues had never been my job, and the Flaming Fist didn't like to talk about it.

"You know this name you just mentioned is the name of a recently departed man?" I asked and he nodded. I didn't like where the conversation was going.

"I won't bog you with the details, but I spent five years of my life in that, for lack of a better word, war. I was surrounded by much death, so it is only natural that I also found my faith and calling with Urogalan, Lord of the Earth and Protector of the Dead. I changed and, to a certain degree, I even forgave some of my persecutors, at least those who acted somewhat honorably."

"Like Korin but unlike Sidon?"

"Yes. During the last year, many of us had realized our vengeful campaign was going nowhere. It may sound strange, but I had talked twice with Korin during some failed negotiations, and if not for the conflict, I think we would have been friends. Unfortunately, the last negotiation was a trap, and we were survivors -I was among them- fled and during a month a mercenary army hounded us. Korin was with them and, in the end, I killed him in a desperate battle."

"After that, you fled to Baldur's Gate?" I decided not to ask about how he carried Korin's head.

"Yes, and even got married, something I would have thought impossible twenty years ago. As a priest of Urogalan, I have also helped many of my kin to find peace in what some wrongly believe to be our last and darkest moment."

"I see. Now you have a fulfilling life, so why would you need someone like me? I'm a private eye and, sometimes, something more, but that's it."

Baledar continued his story as if I had not said anything. "You see, I had to flee after the last traitorous negotiation, and I left behind many things. Some of them very important and powerful. I'd like to reclaim them."

"Were they yours?" I asked him, and he looked at me puzzled. "You were an escaped slave, what could you possibly own?"

For the first time, I saw the hint of a negative emotion on his face, but it quickly passed away.

"You are right. Yes, they were the spoils of war. Not gold, jewels or anything like that, but sacred parchments, scrolls and relics from a mad Cyric priest we had ambushed. I'm not very proud of asking for them, but I know they'd be better in my hands than wherever they may be now. What do you think would be the better use for them, hide them in the secret stash of some greedy mercenary, let them rot at the hands of a priest of the God of Lies or... here. There was power in those scrolls, a power I suspect I would never be able to hold by myself, but with them I think I could build a true sanctuary for the dead and Urogalan. My faith is strong, but even that has some limits. This garden you see here is a miniature of what I intend to build."

He had a point although I had no reason to believe everything he had said to me. Still, it was a better idea than a sanctuary to Cyric. Anything was better than that. Unfortunately, now I knew what he wanted, which meant that there was only one thing he could need of me, and I didn't like that at all.

"So, what exactly do you need me for?" I asked, trying to stall the inevitable.

"Korin didn't have the answers I needed, but Sidon did. He was the one whose army almost killed me. I'm sure he is the one who took our most valuable treasures. I need you to rob a grave for me. I need Sidon's head. He will know exactly what I need."


	4. Chapter 4

Ah, the joys of body snatching! Nature, fresh air (at least for a while), exercise under the stars, and meeting new people. I had fallen low, that's true, but the potential rewards were titillating. Not only had Baledar promised a considerable sum for the head and a bonus if I got the whole body, but he had also promised me he would pay for any possible troubles I could have with the law. As long as I kept my mouth shut, of course.

I was more worried about my reputation than for anything else. Grave robbery wasn't, from a legalistic point of view, the worse crime I had committed. Unless I did something else, like unlawful necromancy (and I wasn't the one who was going to do that), my crime was a minor offense. Still, it is not the kind of thing for which you want to be known. It also gave me quite a bad conscience, which was probably the worse part of the whole thing.

I shook my head, trying to dispel all those doubts, and then I kept digging. After a while, regular as a clockwork, I saw the same moving light going in my direction. It was the lamp from the night guard patrolling the cemetery. I had already digged a hole, so I only needed to crawl there and wait around two minutes; then I would keep digging. As many times before, I did that routine and, after the guard could not see me anymore, I continued my tomb desecration. I still had four more meters to go and even though it was one of the most exhausting jobs I had ever done, my method had the benefit of being almost undetectable.

I had gotten the idea from a history my grandad, a soldier in his youth, had told me about a siege in which he had fought. From the security of their camp, the soldiers dug tunnels towards the city to weaken its foundations. Part of the wall collapsed and then they charged through the hole.

The grave I wanted was on top of a little elevation, a detail that made my job easier. I had digged a little hole at one side of the promontory, big enough for me to crawl in and work inside it towards Sidon's casket. Then I would open it from below. And if I heard someone approaching, I just covered the hole with a few shrubs and waited.

I don't know how much time I spent in that narrow and barely illuminated tunnel (I only had a lonely candle). My mouth, nose and eyes were full of dirt, my arms felt numb, and my back ached from being in that uncomfortable position for so long. I was also disgustingly dirty, and I feared I was beginning to lose my sanity after I don't know how many hours digging and hearing the same repetitive thumping sound. In fact, I kept hearing it even when for some reason I had to stop digging.

At last I arrived at my destination. I began to hit and scrap with my wooden shovel at the tunnel ceiling, and after a few minutes I hit the wooden coffin. I had actually brought a complex wooden contraption to use it as a support for that next stage, but I was so tired and angry I just began to hit to the coffin with my shovel. It broke surprisingly quickly, but whereas I had hoped to see Sidon's stinking head, something dark and heavy (but odorless) feel on top of my head.

After madly screaming for a while, I wearily picked up the fallen thing and saw it was just a brick. I made the coffin crack a little bigger and groped its interior, trying to touch the corpse, but there was none, only more bricks. I don't know if it was my roar of frustration or my shoddy mining abilities -probably both- but without a warning the coffin suddenly collapsed and the wood, soil, and bricks almost crushed me. Although gasping for air and blinded by all the dust, I was able to crawl out of the tunnel alive.

Exhausted and coughing, I lay there on the ground, looking at the stars for a very long time. It was a beautiful sight and not even the smiling face of the patrolling guard grinning at me from above made it worse.

He arrested me or, more precisely, poked me with his spear and screamed me to get up. I answered him with a long string of curses about his mother and all his ancestors, but in the end I did what he ordered me. I was barely sentient by then, and I just walked in a not very straight line, changing direction every time he pricked me with the spear

"Did you find anything valuable, graverobber?" He asked, his cheerful voice muffled by the eternal thumping inside my head.

"Bodysnatcher," I said. "I didn't come here to plunder riches."

Well, not directly.

"Really? What corpse were you trying to steal, then?" He asked.

In hindsight, I know I should have realized there had been a change in his voice, a hint of alarm. I actually felt a bit bad about the whole issue and wanted to come forward as a relatively honest person. What a grave mistake that was. I should have lied to him.

"Sidon of Darromar. But why I wanted him is none of your damn business. Now, my ears hurt, so would you be so kind to shut up and just get me to the nearest jail so I can sleep comfortably and then pay my fine by tomorrow morning? And about your spear, stop..."

Then I heard it; or rather, I felt it. It was a silence when there should have been none: a discordance, a sudden stop in his footstep, the silence that his sudden breath-holding left behind. I glanced back and saw him thrusting his spear towards me. Terrified, I bounced sideways just in time to not get totally impaled, although he was able to wound me. The pain numbed me momentarily, but my warrior reflexes kicked in quickly and fear mutated into anger and desperation.

I hurled myself at him, and we both fell to the ground. I jumped on top of his torso and we wrestled for a while. He was a vicious warrior, but he wasn't a professional fighter. After a brutal struggle in which I had to beat him severely and break his nose (and a few more things), I was able to reduce him and choke him using my arm and his own shoulder. He resisted for a while but, at last, he stopped struggling and fainted.

I tried to stand up and calm myself dow, only to realize how much my side hurt. I was going to kick him as a revenge when I saw all the blood on his body, but it was not his own, it was mine. For the first time, I realized how much I was bleeding from my left side.

I didn't remember to pick up my tools or equipment; I just fled in the only direction I could think of, running as fast as I could for what seemed a whole life. It may have been for all I know, it felt like it and it certainly decided a whole life. I don't know for how long I ran, truth be told, minutes or hours, perhaps. But with every passing moment I felt weaker until I collapsed on the ground, in the middle of nowhere.

To this day, I still have many difficulties thinking about that moment. What I remember most, what even today it still haunts me, was not the physical pain -which was great-, but my dark resignation, like a surrender. I had accepted it and I stopped resisting. I had yielded, I had desisted and accepted that that was going to be my end and that I had failed... about many things. And that was how I was going to be remembered, as a fallen soldier turned grave robber, dying in some gutter. I even resigned myself to that.

No, I don't like to think about that moment. It hurt much more than the stabbing.


End file.
